Campaign to save Wright factory wins support

DAYTON, Ohio — The campaign to save the Wright brothers’ factory has won a new supporter — David McCullough.

The author of the best-selling book “The Wright Brothers” endorses the effort in a new video filmed inside the historic factory. You can see the video below.

“I applaud all of you who are working to save these buildings and to bring them back into being part of the story,” of the Wright brothers, McCullough says in the video, which was released by the National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA).

Wilbur and Orville Wright formed the Wright Company in 1909 and built the company’s first factory building in Dayton in 1910. The company added a second building in 1911. The factory was the first in America built for manufacturing airplanes.

“These are symbolic or emblematic structures in that they contain a story of importance not just to this community, but to the country and to the world,” McCullough says.

Orville sold the Wright Company in 1915. The factory was the nucleus of what became the 54-acre Delphi Home Avenue Plant, which shut down in 2008.

The non-profit NAHA has been working with the National Park Service, state of Ohio, city of Dayton and others to make the factory part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.

“I’d like to be able to walk in here and see their airplanes being built at various stages,” McCullough says in the video. “I’d like to see the tools that were used. The saws, the lathes, that sort of thing. I’d like to see where they had lunch. I’d like to see the whole world, the whole reality of this community. This was a community in here, a community at work.”

NAHA is negotiating with the current property owner, Home Avenue Redevelopment, to buy the 54-acre site. Dayton Metro Library has committed to locate its new West Branch on the site, an approximately $10 million investment.

NAHA projects it will need $4 million to buy the property, stabilize the buildings, make initial site improvements and begin redeveloping the remaining acres in ways that would complement the Wright Factory Unit of the national park. It has raised about $2 million so far in public and private funds.

At the request of many individuals wanting to contribute, it has added a donation page to its website.

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